Concept

Confronted with emerging realities artists across Asia are increasingly adjusting their strategies to the global preference for new and mixed media while working within traditions where artistic expressions are seen to reflect the interconnectedness of art, society and environment. They are looking to create works that are not only socially engaged but are also embedded in the diction of the current digital age. Bangladesh has always encouraged artists to explore their social realities, cultural and aesthetic values and histories, and, at the same time, engage with the contemporary cultural and technological trends from beyond its borders. The overlap between the local and the global is happening everywhere; it is in art that it takes a stimulating creative dimension.

The overlap has also been taking a disturbing dimension over the years: the increase in the incidents of forced migration and displacement, in addition to rise in other forms of migration. This is contesting and redefining the idea of home which has always inspired artists to explore the different forms it takes, from domestic space to nation. In choosing the theme –Home and Displacement—the 19th Asian Art Biennale will be remembering the victims of forced displacement everywhere in the world and pledge to stand by them so that those still alive do not become forgotten souls.

The 19th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2022 will thus focus on the complexities that the globalized world is witnessing where, on the one hand economic and other classes of migrants establish their presence in different cultural landscapes, and, on the other forced displacement is uprooting entire communities from their lands and planting them in faraway places. While the concept of home and homeliness has always been a stable signifier of social condition, displacement destabilizes it and forces a new understanding of such terms as unhomeliness and ethnic cleansing. How does an artist react when home for many becomes a distant memory, or a constant reminder of trauma to be lived over and over again? What emotions does exile evoke? How do exile and displacement impact human creativity? Above all, at a time when rights the media picks up a terrorist attack or hate crime in Europe for a worldwide coverage, why are these unfortunate people consigned to media oblivion? How do they figure in official discourses? In art and literature? These questions should and do engage artists. The 19th Asian Art Biennale would like to see artists of Asia respond to them.

The Biennale will of course keep open other options, such as the fast-track developments in communication technology, the expansion of the visual media and urbanization, the rise of ideologies in our time or the disappearance of green from our lives. As artists explore these options, it is our belief that a link with the Biennale’s main theme will offer itself.

Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh, since its beginning in 1981, has attempted to display various artistic endeavours of our time in which continuity and change come together. The geographical parameter is important only in a generic sense and also for identification of sponsorship in this pioneering venture. It was inevitable that with time, other regions that share, more or less, the same artistic impulses and face the same challenges of development and identity would be included in the exhibition as has happened in recent years.